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266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 2020
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2021 Hugo Award Finalists
I'm noticing a tendency for 'graphic novel' 'adaptations' to rely much more heavily on narration than original graphic novels do, and Parable of the Sower takes that tendency to extremes. For the most part, it does not tell a story through images and dialog; rather, it tells a story through Lauren's journal entries, which would still be readable without the accompanying illustrations (except for the the religious bits, which are just not readable, period, but I'll get to that in a minute). Occasionally, we'll get a big, impressive splash page of a riot or some interesting set dressing, but it's more often along the lines of text overlaid on panels of people doing nothing of interest, or panels depicting events described by the text. Character interaction with actual dialog bubbles does happen, and becomes more common in the second half of the story - almost like this is a graphic novel or something - but Lauren's journaling continues throughout.
What I'm saying is (without having read the source material) I don't get the impression that Parable of the Sower was crying out for a graphic novel adaptation, and in any event, it still hasn't quite gotten one.
That said, I can easily see how the source material might be a worse read than this was. Because although Butler's civilizational collapse worldbuilding (that term does not seem right here - 'worldwrecking', maybe?) is great, her protagonist is a teenager, and also literally, explicitly an aspiring cult leader. Lauren has a gift for pseudo-profound bullshit, and has gotten high on her own supply. The book is sprinkled with bits of her poetic drivel about how God is change and so on. This does not endear her to me; to the contrary, it has my eyes in the back of my head. The other characters aren't too keen on it either, and try to call her on her bullshit occasionally once she starts preaching, but she just confidently brushes it off. How much more annoying would she be in full prose?